


Live from Downtown Metropolis

by MaldaineD



Category: Batman (Comics), Robin (Comics), Superboy (Comics), Superman (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 07:16:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8153569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaldaineD/pseuds/MaldaineD
Summary: Lois is checking up on Conner when Clark is on an intergalactic mission.  Well, it turns out that Tim came into Metropolis to surprise Kon for spring break.  Oh, and Livewire decides to ruin the surprise by destroying most of downtown.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Thank you for reading. If you like this, stay tuned for more of my fics, and if you like the story and action, why not check out my long form web comic at ignotacomic.tumblr.com!

She was there to check up on him, for Clark.

“Thanks for inviting me out to lunch, Lois.”

“No problem, Conner. I hadn’t spoken with you in quite a while, and I figured it was a good way to catch up,” Lois said, taking a sip of her glass of wine. The paper was paying for it, so she bought a glass in the medium price range. She wasn’t stingy, but practical.

“This is a really fancy place,” Conner said. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been to a place like this before”

Lois looked down at the menu. She had no idea why her assistant had booked a table here, but then again, she wasn’t used to an assistant. A lot of changes had been happening since her last Pulitzer, and a lot of people were asking questions about when she was going to get her next one. She was a damn good reporter, but it wasn’t like her to ruminate on questions of success. Lois reported on what she believed in, what was interesting, and what needed to be written about. She didn’t do it for awards or ticks on her pole. 

“Miss Lane?”

“I told you not to call me that,” Lois said with a smile. Always so polite, so formal, even after a years out of the tube.

“What are you thinking about?” Conner said.

“Success,” Lois answered, waving at their waiter and pointing to her glass. Another one wouldn’t kill the Planet’s budget.

“I feel like I don’t know much about it.”

“Untrue.”

“I feel like I’m not half the hero Clark is.”

“You’ve been alive a fraction of the time, had a lot put on you, and yet you carry onward. I’d say that’s pretty successful. Everyone needs to take breaks from the hero business. It doesn’t make you weak. Maybe just try being a teen before you jump back into the hero work..”

“Existing is...it’s hard work,” Conner said.

“And congrats to you. In a short year, you’ve somehow managed to hit the teenage angst phase.”

Conner smiled and pretended to look at the menu. His shirt was buttoned all the way up to the top button, and Lois liked the way that he thought it made him look a little fancier. She wondered if Martha told him to do it.

“And how’s Tim?” Lois asked when the waiter brought her the wine and exchanged glasses with her. 

“Good. He has spring break right now, so I’m flying...um, heading to Gotham later today to spend the week with him. Usually our schools’ schedules don’t align so well, but we got lucky this year.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Funny to know that it was just a few months ago you scared me half to death needing to talk about him.”

“The coffee was a little burnt,” Conner said with a half-smile.

She could see the fear in his eyes. It was the same fear that Clark got when he made fun of her. She liked that fear.

“I’ll be honest with you. Clark wanted me to check in while he was away on whatever the name of that planet was. I don’t know I could make that many guttural sounds in a row, and I feel it important to respect other cultures’ language, so I’m not going to even attempt to butcher it.”

“Well, I’m glad you were upfront about it, but I assumed as much. I hope I’m not burdening you too much, Lois.”

“Not at all. You’re growing into quite the young man, Conner.”

The waiter placed the food on the table and Conner gave it the most suspicious look she’d ever seen. He look less suspicious when he was told Lex Luthor was his other donor than he looked now.

“This place isn’t really my speed either,” Lois said. She finished the glass of wine and asked for two boxes and the check.

Standing outside of the food truck, Lois smeared some mustard on her burger and took a mighty bite out of the side, pickles and onion sliding out the back end of it.

“Youe bite is almost as big as Clark’s,” Conner said, a bit worried for her safety.

“It’s why he likes me so much,” she said through half-masticated beef and bun.

Then a familiar voice called out from across the street. Lois didn’t know whether to smile or grimace, so she somehow managed to do both.

“Miss Lane! Miss Lane!” Jimmy Olsen said as he crossed the street, nearly getting hit by four cars in the process.

Conner Kent lunged forward, but Lois grabbed his shoulder, saying, “Don’t worry, he’s very good at never getting hurt...somehow.”

The prophecy correct, Jimmy waved to all the people he’d inconvenienced with the broadest smile on his face. Jimmy looked surprised to see Lois with a teenager, but he was a little afraid to ask her about it.

“Hi, I’m Conner Kent, it’s nice to finally meet you. Clark talks about you all the time,” Conner said without hesitation. 

Lois felt herself staring at Conner with such tenacity. His eyes drifted to meet hers, and she realized that he realized his mistake. There was much realization.

“Oh, Clark...Clark hasn’t mentioned you? Your last name is Kent, too? How are you guys related?” Jimmy asked.

Lois and Conner’s heads snapped to look at Jimmy at nearly the exact same time. Conner’s mouth opened to answer, but only strange clicking noises came out, then a strained laugh. Admittedly, Clark had been very keen on keeping Conner a secret to his co-workers, not in small part to how similar they looked.

“I’m…”

“He’s…”

“What?” Jimmy asked again, eagerly looking with that same goofy smile.

“Second cousins,” Conner said.

Lois just stared at him again.

“Clark...Clark has a pretty big family, huh? And the two of you look like the spitting image of each other. Wow, there is a lot that I don’t know about him. And I thought we were close.”

“Well, you know Smallville. He’s just filled with secrets, Jimmy,” Lois said.

“Really?”

“No,” she responded. “He’s from Kansas. That’s the only thing he has to hide about himself, but for some strange reason, he refuses to stop telling everyone.”

A small shockwave filled the ground, and Conner’s eyes squinted slightly. Jimmy pointed out that there was a bit of an odd tremor, and Lois turned to look at Conner again. This was turning out to be one of the most stressful days she’d experienced since the time she got in the middle of a large scale drug war while covering the foreclosure of that power company. How did she always manage to be in the right place at the right time, exactly when she didn’t want to be.

Another shockwave cracked the pavement, and smoke started to pour over the buildings. Lois searched her brain, trying to find a way to get Conner out of there without him completely revealing himself to Jimmy, something she feared was only moments way. A group of terrified people started to run away from the smoke as another tremor caused some people to collapse. Conner ran to help a few of them up, and Jimmy helped some that were closer. Lois started directing people to an emergency shelter. They were rarely used, but when she knew Superman wouldn’t be there, it was always smart to get people to safety through any means necessary.

“Quick, there’s a safety shelter two blocks north of here,” she shouted to the scrambling people, pointing the direction to Donner St.

“Miss Lane, we should get moving that direction,” Jimmy said.

“No, we’re the first ones on the scene. Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

“Miss Lane! This is not the time for a story,” Jimmy said.

“There is always time for a story, Jimmy. You just better have one of your cameras in that backpack of yours.”

Perry would be pissed. He wanted her out of the field. He wanted her assistant to do the leg work outside of the office, and he wanted her keeping a low profile after her work in Russia. But this was where she wanted to be, where she needed to be, and who she was. She was in the field, and she was going to get to the bottom of this, report the story, and help as many people as she could.

Conner continued to help direct people, and after a moment, he saw Lois moving towards the chaos that was erupting only a few blocks over. He caught her gaze, and she gave him a slight nod, and he returned the gesture, taking off towards an alleyway only a few yards away, the scrambling crowds and screams covered the small pulse of energy that lifted him into the air after stripping down to his costume. It always felt good to see those yellow bands and fingerless gloves. It made him feel powerful. It made him feel like one of the family, the S emblazoned on his blue and red suit.

Lois and Jimmy reached the corner of Siegel and Shuster. Livewire had erupted into a shower of electricity and destroyed a few gas lines under the street, sinking a few buildings in the process. 

“Are you getting this, Jimmy?”

“A few pictures, Miss Lane, but I’m getting too much of a glare.”

“Then find your vantage point! I’m going to try and get some of these people out of here. I need a shot of her, so don’t mess it up.”

Lois pulled a pair of flats out of her bag, and slipped them onto her feet. She never left home without a pair of practical shoes. Helping a few people out of the debris, she told them to move towards the emergency shelter.

“Superman will be here soon,” she told them, even though she knew it was a lie. 

“Well, if it isn’t the Pulitzer prize winning Lois Lane. You know, I’ve been reading about you a lot in the papers,” Livewire said as she descended from the air to the ground, and Lois felt a strange tingle under her feet.

“Electrocuting the ground, huh? I know all about electrical safety,” she said with a piqued face, careful not to move and un-ground.

“Of course you do, sweetheart,” Livewire said, her blue lips parting, electricity even surging from her teeth.

“What are you after?” Lois asked.

“Oh, I didn’t realize this was an interview. Already working towards your next piece?”

“It’s an expose on beings of pure energy. You’re my first subject. Captain Atom is next Thursday,” Lois said.

Livewire got close to Lois’s face. She almost felt like her skin was peeling from the heat, the oxygen itself not quite reaching her lips. Lois would admit it, she was a little bit scared.

“Where are you kid?”

“What?” Livewire asked just before Superboy shoulder-checked her into an adjacent building.

“Sorry about that. There were some people that needed help, and I’m still pretty new at this.”

“Oh, Superboy! I don’t know why you’re telling me all this since I don’t know you, but thanks for the exclusive, so why don’t you go and fight the bad guy now because that seems like a pretty good idea, thanks!” Lois said through her teeth as a few more people ran from the square.

“Right! Yes. Thank you, Miss Lane. And I rather enjoyed that article you wrote,” he said with a wink.

God, he was as hopeless as Clark.

Lois ran to a nearby building, seeing a reflection of light off of Jimmy’s camera. Ascending eight stories, she pushed the door of the roof opened, Jimmy jumping nearly ten feet in the air because of it.

“Are you getting some good pictures?”

“Yes, ma’am. I can’t believe it. Do you see him! It’s Superboy! He helped a few times, and then disappeared for months. No one’s even gotten a picture of him before!”

“Until you, Jimmy. That’s our story. Live, here, now, from Metropolis. Stay focused on the hero.”

Jimmy sat behind the eyepiece, taking shot after shot, and digging into his pack for new film every minute or so. Lois looked on from the roof, smiling with each hit, and grimacing with each pummel he took. He wasn’t Clark, but she loved to watch him fly through the air. Too bad Superman couldn’t see this.

“Miss Lane. Look! It’s Robin!”

“What?” Lois said, seeing where Jimmy was pointing.

“What do you think he’s doing here? Why isn’t he with Batman?”

“Oh god,” Lois said. “I’m, I’m going to go in for a closer look. Do you have a handheld.”

She didn’t wait for him to answer, and instead dug into his pack to find a small camcorder in the side pocket. She could barely hear his protests over the sound of an explosion behind her.

The blast rocketed Robin into the air, Superboy catching him as he arched towards the ground, sliding back and placing his feet back on the ground.

“Tim! What are you doing here?” Conner said. 

“Surprising you, but it looks like she stole my thunder...oh god, I’ve been hanging around Dick way too much.”

Another picture, “a Miracle Catch”, Jimmy called it.

Lois crouched behind some debris, a little annoyed that a skirt had been her choice of wardrobe for the day. Robin swung above her and landed on a streetlamp not too far away, throwing a few bombs towards Livewire before she destroyed the post, pieces of it nearly taking Lois’s head off. The reporter got a few seconds of solid video, and then moved away. 

“Superboy!” Robin called as a stray bolt blasted him across the square to a skidding halt.

Just as Robin was about to run over to him, he landed near Lois instead.

“What are you doing here? It’s dangerous!”

“You don’t think I know that. Go make sure he’s okay, and I’ll draw her attention,” Lois said.

“I can’t let you…”

“Just do it, Tim!” Lois shouted as she hopped over her cover and ran, full speed, across the square, holding the camcorder open and getting a long shot of Livewire floating above the block. It didn’t take long for the villain to notice her in her purple blazer.

“I thought you were supposed to be smart,” Livewire said as she landed in front of Lois. 

Lois didn’t say anything, she just scanned the area for something to help her, but nothing came to mind. Livewire ran a finger across her cheek, and she winced in pain as a burn followed the trail of her finger. It was then that she saw it, behind Livewire, a power distribution box. It powered the whole city block. If she could turn it off, she could keep Livewire from electricity for a moment, ground her for long enough for Tim and Conner to take her out, if Robin could get Superboy up.

Jimmy snapped the shot, Robin, crouched over Superboy’s motionless body, and then the one of him slapping his face, then giving chest compressions. Jimmy stopped taking pictures for a moment.

“But...but he just got back,” Jimmy said. “He just came back.”

“Damn it, Superboy! Wake up!” Tim said as he kept up compressions. He knew he didn’t have much experience, but he was a Kryptonian. He should have had more stamina than that!

Robin bent low and place a kiss on his lips... “Wake up for me.”

Conner smiled and weakly said, “Okay.”

Tim gave him a hug that turned into sitting him up. “We’ve got to help Lois, and then we need to talk about why Lois Lane knows that my name is Tim.”

“Oh, yeah...about that,” Conner said as he pushed off the ground and flew towards Livewire.

“You’re so lucky you can fly, clone-boy,” Tim said as he fired a grappling hook into a nearby window and pulled himself into the air and high above the square.

“Now you die, Lois Lane!”

“Not if I can help it,” Conner said as line of heat vision pounded into the side of her head and pushed her away from Lois.

Wasting no time, Lois charged forwards to the power box, but of course, it was locked. Finding a stone on the ground, she started to pound on the padlock just as Livewire slammed into a building next to her.

“Maybe not so close to me, Superboy!” she yelled as she continued to hit the lock with little success.

“I can help with that,” Robin said, running over with a set of lockpicks.

“I’d appreciate that very much, thank you.”

Robin opened the lock and pulled the box open, and then the two of them looked at the staggering amount of fuses, switches and wires. Looking at each other, Lois pointed at the computer on Tim’s wrist several times with a perturbed look on her face. 

“Right,” Tim said as his face, shaped with sadness, watched Conner take a massive blast of energy from Livewire.

“We have to stop the power if we want to help him,” Lois said.

Tim began his typing, and Jimmy kept snapping his pictures, moving from angle to angle, focusing in on faces, on Lois, on Superboy, on Livewire. Reaching down to his pack, he realized that he was out of film.

“This one,” Tim said as he flipped one of the breakers, each breaker after that consecutively shut off.

Both of them looked over as Livewire wasted a great deal of energy trying to blast Superboy out of the air, but instead crackled out of juice. A wicked smile on her face, she ran over to an upturned piece of concrete and held her hands over some of the underground wiring, but nothing happened.

“What the? Come on, juice me up,” Livewire shouted, running to a lamp and trying to draw power from it. “No, no, no, no, no!”

Superboy flew over and landed right next to her. She looked over at him.

“Are you going to stop, or am I going to have to punch you?”

“Nahhhh, you and the Bat Brat win this round. I gotta admit, I figured you’d be pretty easy to take out, but I’m impressed.”

She sat down, defeated. Conner sat down next to her.

“Hey, thanks for not, you know, just knocking me out.”

“It didn’t seem necessary,” Superboy said. 

Robin extended a hand, and Lois shook it. She looked up to where Jimmy was sitting on the roof. She gave him a little wave, and he waved back. Lois already had the words for the piece typing out in her head.

~~

Conner and Tim walked into the Daily Planet. Conner’s fingers were laced with Tim’s as he showed Tim where Clark worked, and Tim was too nice to tell him that Bruce had brought him here a handful of times before. 

“Ready for a lunch that hopefully doesn’t involve any villains?” Lois said as she slung her purse over her shoulder. A small piece of tape was placed over the burn on her face.

“Can we get tacos?” Conner said.

“Tacos sound good to me,” Tim said.

“Well then, tacos it is,” Lois responded as she led the boys out the building, wondering exactly how she had become responsible for the two of them.

Before she could walk out the door, Jimmy ran over to her, holding a stack of prints. Lois rolled her eyes, thinking Perry had sent Jimmy to come to his office for a stern talking to, but was happy to find that Jimmy had other matters to discuss. Lois told the boys to wait outside and that she would be there after she selected a few photos to run. Flipping through, she noticed that there were some good shots of her, some great shots of Livewire, and some truly heroic shots of Tim and Conner saving the day. But one caught her eye. It was of Tim, leaning over Conner, kissing him. She looked up at Jimmy, seeing an excited smile on his face.

“Isn’t that crazy? We could break the story, young superhero love! I think the people of Metropolis would really love it. Like, why else would Robin kiss Superboy. That certainly isn’t the breath of life. And why else would he just show up in Metropolis without any warning?”

“Do you have the negatives?”

“Yes.”

“And how many people have you told about this picture?”

“No one. We’re a team Miss Lane, so of course I would bring this to you first.”

“I’m keeping this, and I want you to destroy the negatives of this photo.”

“W...what? But why? This could be huge.”

“Trust me, Jimmy. Maybe we should just let a couple of kids have young love without the world knowing about it. Run the story as written, but use this picture,” Lois said, holding up the shot of Conner catching Tim before he hit the ground. It was a good shot. “And caption it however you’d like. I want you coming up with the line.”

“Really? Me?”

“It’s a great shot, Jimmy. You’re the only one I could picture doing it.”

Lois gave him a little punch on the shoulder as she walked out the door. She had two hungry, lovesick teens to get tacos with. She could almost hear Perry White shouting her name from the top of the building, but she didn’t care. She was Lois Lane.


End file.
